No Good Doctor

by Nicole Snow

  I can’t think about that right now. I need to take care of Ember.

  I stroke my thumbs over her knuckles, meeting those shell-shocked eyes, wishing I could pull my darkness out of her. I’ve spent most of the last decade as a healer. Some say the things I do with animals are damn near miraculous. Do I have it in me to do something for this tender, deliriously sweet firefly?

  I still don’t understand. Not completely. How innocent is she, that just the sight of Nine, of those men with guns, could reduce her to this state?

  And how fucking terrible am I? The asshole, the failure who couldn’t protect her from this small glimpse of the world I live in? Sour guilt engulfs me like a shadow.

  It’s hard to remember, right now, that she’s not mine to protect. Mine and not mine don’t matter when I’ve let her get caught in my secret riptide, all because she makes me go too soft to shut her out where she belongs.

  “If I run you a bath, will you be okay cleaning yourself up?” I ask. “You can borrow something of mine to wear. I’ll check your injuries once you’re clean.”

  Ember only nods slowly.

  For just a moment, though, her hands tighten on mine, squeezing, clutching, holding me tight.

  Damn. She might despise me by morning, but she’s clinging to me now.

  I stand, weaving my fingers into her hair, leaning in to press my lips to the top of her head. “Be right back,” I say. “I won’t be out of your sight for more than a minute. You need me, you need anything, just call my name.”

  Just another nod, wordless.

  I know Ember. I know that in crisis mode, she finds her strength, her calm, and that she’ll find her way back from this and recover.

  Fireflies are durable creatures. They have to be to burn so bright against the vast darkness. Sometimes they even put the stars to shame.

  For her, for this woman, I swear I’ll make her glow.

  I damn sure can’t stand seeing her like this.

  I pull away slowly and head into the bathroom to run the hot water and lay out towels. While the bathtub fills, I pull the cabinet behind the mirror open and check the first aid kit, then lay it on the edge of the sink. When I pass through the living room on the way to my bedroom, her eyes track me, and again when I return to the bathroom to set out one of my old button-downs that she can wrap herself up in once she’s clean.

  By then the tub is full. I shut off the steaming water and return to her, sinking down on one knee in front of her again. She’s not made a single sound this whole time.

  I’m sorry, I want to say. I’m so fucking sorry.

  But instead I ask, “You need me to carry you to the bath?”

  She lifts her head, giving me a long look. Her eyes brim over; her lips part like she might say something, but she looks away sharply.

  She stands.

  And walks away from me, her steps shaky, without looking back.

  I sit down on the sofa and drag a hand over my face, groaning to myself.

  What a fucking mess.

  While she bathes, I make a phone call to Warren. I don’t trust those men not to make a follow-up sweep looking for Ember once their business with Fuchsia wraps up.

  I also don’t trust Fuchsia not to hunt Ember down herself to find out what she saw. Warren’s on high alert by the time I’m done talking. He promises me everything I want to hear.

  No one will get in or out of Charming Inn tonight without him knowing. He says he’s put Blake on watch for backup, if needed.

  Next, I try the other number. The number from the burner phone; the number that’ll give me Nine.

  He doesn’t pick up.

  I can think of far too many reasons why not.

  Then I hear a click and look up as the door to the bathroom opens. Ember steps out damp, her hair wet and straggling everywhere, darkening the shoulders of the pale-blue cotton button-down wrapped around her and dwarfing her so much that the hem falls past her knees, the sleeves falling over her hands no matter how much she pushes them up.

  The flare of possession I feel at seeing that slender, honey-sweet body wrapped up in nothing but my shirt, her slim, lovely legs bare and gleaming, is marred by the gravity of the situation. For a minute my head damn near pops up from spinning.

  I come back when I notice the scratches on her skin. I beckon to her, sit her down gently on the couch, and go to work disinfecting the rips in her perfection, salving them over. I bandage one deeper cut down the outside of her calf and wrap up a strained ankle. She’s so small, so fragile under me.

  She’s unresponsive, save for curling into herself.

  When I’m done, I close the first aid kit and toss it on the coffee table, leaning to meet her eyes. “Can you sleep? I promise it’ll all seem like a bad dream by morning, when it sinks in that you’re safe.”

  Her head tilts. Her faded blue eyes meet mine.

  Am I? they’re asking. Am I really safe?

  My jaw tightens. But she nods once more, and this time I can’t stop myself. I reach out and scoop her up, gliding her softness into my arms, resting her against my chest, close to my war drumming heart. After a tense moment, she goes loose, laying her head on my shoulder.

  It shouldn’t ease something inside me, but it does.

  I carry her into my bedroom and lay her down in my king-sized bed. She’s so small in the center of it, dwarfed, this lovely young woman in my bed for all the wrong reasons. Fuck.

  She sits numbly for a moment, then shifts to crawl under the covers, burrowing like a chipmunk into a nest until she’s nothing but a lump in the blankets and a tangle of blonde hair drifting out, wide eyes peering at me over the edges of the sheets.

  “Stay?” she whispers. “Until I fall asleep.”

  “Of course,” I answer, settling in the easy chair to watch over her.

  She curls herself up even smaller, looking so tiny and vulnerable that I can’t help myself.

  I kick my shoes off a minute later and ease into the bed with her, folding my body around hers and drawing her close.

  It’s as much to comfort myself as to comfort her – to feel that she’s there, real, alive, safe. After a tense moment, she flings herself into me, gasping out these soft, hurt, broken sounds. That’s when I realize she’s crying.

  Hiding her face against my chest and draining her pain.

  I let her. I curl my hand against the back of her neck and hold her close while she shakes against me. I don’t move for anything until her shaking stops, slowly, one haggard breath at a time Finally, this lovely firefly girl in my arms is sound asleep. At peace. Mine for tonight and maybe forever.

  I shouldn’t think crazier than what we’ve already been through. Damn if holding her doesn’t reach down inside me and press down on something primal, something fierce, something that makes me want to beat the living pulp out of every last thing that’d ever hurt her. Whether that’s snakes like Fuchsia or mysterious strike teams or just the grief of losing her old man.

  Sleep really will put things in perspective. Ember must’ve short-circuited, shocked herself numb, been far too frightened out there lost, alone, with no idea that those men – who I suspect were Galentron mercs – likely weren’t after her and would’ve left her alone.

  Does it even matter? The more I try to hide from her, the more I hurt her.

  She deserves better. She deserves the truth. But how the fuck can I give it to her?

  How can I tell her what happened then if I need to prevent it from happening again?

  I don’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s damn hard not to with her in my arms.

  There’s something about Ember Delwen that makes peace wash over me, what with her slender body tucked against mine and the way she holds on to me.

  Even if I’d wanted to get up and let her go, I couldn’t have.

  I don’t want to.

  I don’t get a choice in the morning, either. The sound of someone knocking on my door jerks me awake instantly. I instinctively tighten my protective hold
on her.

  Ember lets out a sleepy moan, while I lift my head, opening my eyes and glancing toward the door of my bedroom, telling myself to stand down.

  Trouble wouldn’t come knocking. It’d be far more likely to ram down the door.

  “Stay here,” I tell her, carefully disentangling myself.

  She blinks at me sleepily, but she’s already gone again by the time I slip out of bed and tuck the covers around her. Last night took far too much out of her, and one night’s sleep won’t be enough to erase the agony.

  I’m wary, making my way to the front door and peering out the peephole, hand drifting to my back, my gun, a precaution.

  Barbara Delwen’s lively blue eyes make me relax.

  At least until I open the door and see who she’s brought with her. Sheriff Wentworth Langley. Also Everett Peters.

  Fuck.

  “Where’s my Ember?” Barbara asks breathlessly, face pale, and I step aside to let her in, gesturing toward my room.

  “Sleeping,” I say. It does no good because Barbara rushes past me like the wind.

  I hear a soft cry of Ember! followed by a sleepy, confused Mom? Then my gaze turns to the Sheriff. He nods to me sort of ruefully.

  “Doc,” he says, clearing his throat. “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been hearing some real weird stories around town, and with your girl getting lost last night, I just wanted to see if it was connected. Mind if I have a chat with her?”

  My girl? Christ. I wonder how much of Heart’s Edge is running their mouths besides Langley. Still, a part of me wishes those two words were true, while a saner portion of my brain screams no way.

  “Just don’t upset her,” I growl, tossing my head to grant him permission to enter.

  Not so much for Peters.

  I step outside onto the front stoop, blocking the prick, crowding him back. He moves just enough for me to yank the screen door closed behind me.

  Fuck him. He’s already walked into my house uninvited once.

  I’m not laying out the red carpet to let him in again. Not until I get answers.

  We lock eyes for several moments through the screen. His expression seems so deliberately neutral and pleasantly bland, it’s calculated to piss me off.

  “Start talking,” I say low, struggling to keep my voice even, struggling not to let my anger erupt. “What have you done?”

  “Calm down, Gray,” Peters says affably, as if this is a goddamned stroll in the park and I’m overreacting. Right. Men with guns storming Heart’s Edge is not a fucking day in the posies. “If you’d been willing to talk to us, we’d have happily kept you in the loop so you could’ve avoided nasty surprises like this.”

  “Define ‘this,’” I bite off. “Because right now ‘this’ is a vulnerable young woman scared for her life after thinking men I suspect belong to you want to kill her.”

  “They wouldn’t have laid a hand on her. I don’t know who they were, but we know how mercenary teams work. They’re professionals, the same as you and me. Neither Fuchsia nor I nor anybody else are interested in that girl or this town, and you’re...incidental.” He says it so calmly, with such a bite-me smile the insult seems nuclear. “We only needed you to flush out Nine. He’s the one we’re here for. And probably what that strike team was really after.”

  “That’s not reassuring.”

  “It should be.” Peters’ smile grows – and this time it’s his true smile. Self-satisfied, anticipatory, promising, cold. Something I saw in another time and place as hell descended. “Now, as a doctor, I thought you’d love to know this – we’ve found something very, very interesting in Nine’s blood.”

  I shouldn’t rise to the bait.

  Still, I’m curious, worried, hoping like hell that whatever they want Nine for involves a brief visit and then getting out of town.

  I eye him, then say slowly, “Explain.”

  “You’ll recall after the...incident, let’s call it,” he says it like he’s doing me a favor, not saying more. “Our friend, Nine, spent some time in police custody in the hospital burn unit? Right before he went to prison?”

  I nod. How could I ever forget?

  “Well, they took blood samples there and stored them. It turns out he was exposed to live SP-73.”

  My heart goes still, my body cold. It’s like day turns to night inside me, ice enclosing my body. “Goddamn. Are you saying he’s a carrier—”

  “That’s just it,” Peters says, his eyes twinkling. “He’s not. He was infected and survived with nary a symptom. He’s immune, Gray. And his blood could prove very useful in controlling and curing an outbreak, should anything like SP-73 ever be used on American soil.”

  My lungs lock up. My world implodes. Time itself freezes as all the horrific implications slam my brain one by one.

  It’s hard to remember to breathe again.

  Shit. The worst possibility is if Nine was a passive carrier, he could’ve infected this entire town a dozen times over. It wouldn’t take much for the dormant virus to jump to someone else during his brief nighttime forays into town. But I heard what happened months ago, when he supposedly brought Warren and Haley’s niece, Tara, home after she got lost in the woods.

  The girl never got sick. She couldn’t stop raving about the monster man who saved her, and she even did a paper on it.

  Not a carrier then, but something else. Apparently, he’s immune enough to render the virus completely inert, which opens far too many possibilities. It also makes his blood worth a fucking fortune for greedy, cutthroat mercenaries like Peters and Fuchsia.

  “You want to get your hands on his blood? You want to sell it to the assholes who’ll pay you handsomely,” I whisper with a frown, pressing my knuckles to my mouth.

  “So does Fuchsia,” Peters says grimly. “Which is why she’s here—same as me. She’s come to cull Nine’s DNA for profit. I’m here to stop her. That blood could save millions of lives in the right hands.”

  I say nothing. I don’t trust his altruism in the slightest.

  He’s here for his own ends, and he’s framing Fuchsia as the problem so he can try to win me over to his side. Stack the odds in his favor.

  Idiot.

  I’ll never side with either of them or anyone but the good people of Heart’s Edge.

  “So the armed response?” I press. “That was you, trying to intervene with her?”

  “Ah.” He makes a soft, disgruntled sound. “I’m afraid I wasn’t behind that, and don’t know who was. Possibly someone else from Galentron who hasn’t made themselves known at this point in time. Another player, another pawn. But I can still promise you they aren’t interested in that girl, or in stacking up more civilian collateral damage.”

  Bull. That’s a sobering thought, though – that someone else might be in Heart’s Edge, pursuing their own agenda. I have a short list of suspects, and Everett Peters is always at the top of it.

  I can’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth. In a clipped tone, I say, “Thanks. Now if you wouldn’t mind getting the fuck off my porch...”

  He dips briefly in a mocking bow, pressing his hand to his throat. “I’m here to help.”

  I don’t believe that at all.

  I don’t say a word, either, just watch him turn to walk away with a lightness in his step that makes me wonder what he’s really so happy about.

  Sheriff Langley stays a bit longer, Barbara Delwen longer still. While I’m glad that her mother holding her and smoothing her hair back helps Ember look less scared out of her skin, a selfish part of me hopes she doesn’t leave with Barbara.

  She’s better off with me. It’s easier knowing she’s safe.

  As long as she’s in my sight, I can keep Fuchsia, Peters, and anyone else away from her.

  After spending some time satisfying herself that Ember’s in one piece, Barbara gently lays her back against the pillows with a kiss to her cheek, and then straightens, crossing the room and looking up at me with beseeching eyes.

&n
bsp; “She’s a little fragile right now,” she murmurs softly. Gone are the brassy, warbling tones or the teasing. “Be gentle, okay?”

  I realize, then, that I’m not the only one who wears a mask. For once, she’s being real.

  This is my first time meeting the real Barbara Delwen, the person behind the persona she wears to cope with the grief over losing her husband. The thought of anything happening to her daughter must’ve horrified her.

  Most people put on masks for reasons, after all. To protect themselves from hurt, to hide their pain from other people. They’re a way we survive.

  Only, at some point, my mask stopped protecting anyone.

  Now, it’s started causing harm.

  That’s still on my mind as I nod, offering Barbara a tired smile. “I just want to keep her safe, ma’am.”

  “I know. I know the type of man you are.” With a wan smile, she curls her hand against my arm, gripping my skin warmly. “Thanks for humoring me, Dr. Caldwell. I’ll be back to check in on her later.”

  I’m not sure what to make of that – of her assessment of what type of man I am.

  There’s no time to make anything of it. I have Ember to focus on, and after I watch Barbara walk away down the hall and listen to the front door open and close, I sink down on the edge of the bed.

  Ember’s curled up on her side, watching me with wide, thoughtful eyes. They aren’t red or rimmed from tears anymore, but there’s still a certain wariness that wasn’t there before, a new layer and facet to Ember’s own mask.

  I hate that I put it there. Me and my clusterfuck of a past.

  “Hey,” I murmur, at a loss for anything else to say.

  “Hey,” she answers tonelessly, then lowers her eyes, staring at the curl of her fingers against the pillow, tangled up in the golden spill of her shining hair. “I didn’t tell her anything,” she promises. “I don’t know what’s going on, Gray. What you’re caught up in. But it seems like the kind of thing where you don’t tell people much if you can help it. I told the Sheriff I was out for a hike and thought I nearly got shot by hunters. A misunderstanding, an accident, I said.”

  Even if it came at such a cost, I can’t help but be grateful.